Date of Conferral

2023

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Elizabeth Thompson

Abstract

The role that the information technology (IT) department serves is governed by the corporate culture and how it values the use of knowledge, including IT, to achieve a strategic competitive advantage. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the potential relationships between information acquisition, knowledge dissemination, shared interpretation, organizational memory, and organizational flexibility. Two theories served as the theoretical foundation for this study: contingency theory and the resource-based view of the firm. To answer the question of possible correlation between organizational flexibility and components of knowledge management, a randomly selected sample of 193 IT professionals employed at small- and medium-sized enterprises from eight Midwestern states was presented a knowledge management questionnaire consisting of items that ask these professionals how their organizations prioritize different aspects of knowledge management. Regression analysis and bivariate correlation were used to determine whether a relationship exists between the dependent variable, organizational flexibility, and the independent variables: knowledge dissemination, shared interpretation, organizational memory and information acquisition. Flexibility had a positive correlational relationship with all variables, with information acquisition as the only statistically significant variable. IT managers will benefit from knowing what potential aspects of knowledge management act as barriers to organizational flexibility. Managers can take the information in this dissertation to facilitate knowledge management practices and influence positive social change within their organizations, given the constraints put upon them from the business side.

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